Society for Pure English Tract 4 eBook

’Absurd uses with chief, &c.: The
chief protagonist is a young Nonconformist minister.
/ Unlike a number of the leading protagonists in the
Home Rule fight, Sir Edward Carson was not in Parliament
when.... / It presents a spiritual conflict, centred
about its two chief protagonists, but shared in by
all its characters.

’Absurd plural uses: One of the protagonists
of that glorious fight for Parliamentary Reform in
1866 is still actively among us. / One of these immense
protagonists must fall, and, as we have already foreshadowed,
it is the Duke. / By a tragic but rapid process of
elimination most of the protagonists have now been
removed. / As on a stage where all the protagonists
of a drama assemble at the end of the last act. /
That letter is essential to a true understanding of
the relations of the three great protagonists at this
period. / The protagonists in the drama, which has
the motion and structure of a Greek tragedy (Fy!
fy!—­a Greek tragedy and protagonists?).

’Confusions with advocate, &c.:
The new Warden is a strenuous protagonist of that
party in Convocation. / Mr ——­, an
enthusiastic protagonist of militant Protestantism.
/ The chief protagonist on the company’s side
in the latest railway strike, Mr ——.
/ It was a happy thought that placed in the hands
of the son of one of the great protagonists of Evolution
the materials for the biography of another. / But
most of the protagonists of this demand have shifted
their ground. / As for what the medium himself or
his protagonists may think of them—­for
etymological purposes that is neither here nor there.

’Perhaps we need not consider the Greek scholar’s
feelings; he has many advantages over the rest of
us, and cannot expect that in addition he shall be
allowed to forbid us a word that we find useful.
Is it useful? or is it merely a pretentious blundering
substitute for words that are useful? Pro-
in protagonist is not the opposite of anti-;
_-agonist_ is not the same as in antagonist;
advocate and champion and defender
and combatant are better words for the wrong
senses given to protagonist; and protagonist
in its right sense of the (not a) chief
actor in an affair has still work to do if it could
only be allowed to mind its own business.’

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AMERICAN APPRECIATION

We are glad to reprint the following short extracts
from the New York Times Book Review and Magazine,
September 26, 1920.